How did three Ukrainian women survive the war when they started running?

Our next social project was a series of safety drawings during the war. We have received advice from official sources on health, psychological assistance, nuclear and chemical hazards, and conflict behavior. We hope this content is useful to all Ukrainians, but we still hope that our readers never need to use it.

I am proud that our organization has been able to balance the spirit of our patriots with our business goals in order to sustain our economy, support the Ukrainian economy and donate to the Ukrainians.

My self-care tips

Taking care of myself before the war required great effort and discipline. But now I am learning to be happy in this process. I follow my most effective advice – sleep, diet, exercise and psychotherapy – with a focus on swimming, working out and walking.

Swimming in a literal and figurative way makes me float. I am learning to relax, exercise a little, and enjoy swimming. It has no less therapeutic effect on me than psychotherapy.

I will continue with my psychotherapy. Unwillingly, I have come to the point of giving more depth than in previous years of treatment. All of these issues became clearer during the war, so now, I will try my best to deal with them.

I could not just walk before the war, and my friends joked that I was not walking, but that I was going from point A to B. I am still learning to walk slowly, I appreciate the time and opportunity to walk without air, and think about life, movement and free breathing.

Related match video shows Ukrainian mother hugging her children across the border to safety

I’ve recovered on my own, which is why going around the city with music is one of the first three self-care tips.

2. Olha Shapovava, Head of B2B Department

I worked day and night to get our team to safe places

I am the head of the B2B department at Headway. We offer corporate programs for Headway App Registration for various companies around the world. We want to help them care for the education and development of their employees and help them avoid burnout. We only started the B2B department three months ago, so we are still hiring a team and trying out hypotheses. However, we have already brought the customers into the ship.

After the war, I had to focus entirely on displacing the group. In addition to the London and Cyprus teams, we have a pretty large room in Ukraine – about 90 people – who had to be deported along with their families.

The challenge was to consider each of these personal histories and to address individual issues.

Some of our teammates have small children, some have elderly grandparents, and some have multiple animals that need special attention. We found a place to stay with our pets and it had a big bomb shelter where we hid the air alarm.

When most of our group was safe in western Ukraine, I began moving children and elderly relatives abroad.

The Polish tenants in Warsaw understood our situation and helped us, so we quickly found an office. They gave us a discount and helped organize everything as quickly as possible.

My family did not want to go, and because of this I could not sleep

At the same time, I had to take care of my family. I asked my parents to leave, but they refused.

I could not sleep because he knew they were in danger. I set my alarm clock to turn off every two hours to see the news, and at 5 and 7 p.m., I wrote to them to make sure my parents were safe. If they did not answer, I would be shocked.

After three weeks of fighting, my mother and sister agreed to go to Poland; But my other relatives stayed in Kiev. We meet every day, and I keep an eye on the situation. I miss everyone so much, but I believe we will be back home soon.

B2B tests during the war

As soon as I took the release process, I had to set aside my B2B functions. It was a full-time job (I worked day and night), taking up all my time and energy. As a result, I did not spend more than 20% of my time on general work. Fortunately, my team picked up all the current activities and made it 120%.

So far, I have been fully involved in B2B development. However, in the new reality of war, we face special challenges.

Before the war, we all worked in the office. I think it’s important for a new business like ours to test new hypotheses and solve problems quickly.

Related videos of Ukrainian nursing families fleeing infantry and taking children to makeshift shelters.

But remote operation sometimes disrupts communication and slows down process settings. Moreover, as a team leader, I try to do everything possible to avoid staff burns, but it is very difficult to notice the alarm bells during remote work.

We have brought together all the Hydeway teams in different places – Warsaw, Poland and Western Ukraine – so that we can stick together in small groups, have direct contact, support each other and feel safe.

My self-care tips

I started boxing in Thailand before the war and now he is my best supporter.

As the training is so intense, I completely give up all my negative emotions and allow my brain to rest from daily activities. Running and exercising with boxing helps me to be physically active and to reduce my physical pain.

Studies show that reading at least 20 minutes a day can reduce anxiety. I read every day; It works.

I work with a psychologist. Therapy was part of my life before the war, but now it is even more important. My pre-war goals were no longer important, and my psychologist helped me figure out how to organize my life and what to do next.

It is very important for me to see my family and close friends and talk to them from the heart. So, I find that they came to Warsaw. After all, contact with close associates is a part of everyday life that we Ukrainians lack.

3. Mariana Boloban, Head of Exercise

I worked without a break for a month because work helped me.

For six months, I not only led the recruitment team but also participated in HR processes. I interviewed candidates, strategically developed our team, and met with managers to help them grow with human management.

But as soon as the war broke out, I had to delve into internal relations to help our 130+ team communicate remotely and cope with stress. Together with the emergency team, I helped our team move to safer places in Ukraine and abroad.

During the first month of the war, we met with the recruits online at 11 o’clock every day, even on weekends, to communicate and support each other with psychological and practical measures. I remember working tirelessly because my work gave me a sense of control and helped me to control my mind.

A rocket hit my neighbor’s house, and I had to leave

As soon as the war broke out, I went from Kiev to my parents’ house with a small knife. My co-worker’s family also lives there, so we gather in our spare time to volunteer. It gave me more strength to support my army and others.

I stayed with my parents for a while with a knife Tserkva until a rocket hit a private home near my parents’ house.

After that, I realized that it was no longer safe there, so I decided to move to the relatively safe city of Lviv, west of Ukraine. My mother and nephew went with me, but my father and brother decided to stay in our house. My father was over 60, so I was very worried about them, and I could not persuade them to leave.

One of our tasks is to gather coffee and pizza as we do in times of peace and spend time together. I am happy to be with you in these difficult times.

It is difficult to evaluate candidates who are constantly worried about the bombing.

I think the leader of a group should take an armed role and be a supporter of their group. I try to do this, even though it is very challenging because I am emotionally anxious about the war and my relatives and my future. During the first few days of the war, my team was unsure of why we were hiring, and it was not clear when we would hire people again.

A related father of two has fallen for a Ukrainian refugee fleeing war.

A few weeks later, my team started looking for Ukrainian specialists who would support our skills and our country’s economy.

But the recruitment has changed and it has brought new challenges, such as evaluating candidates’ skills in explosion sites and bombing those who are under constant stress and applying those skills to our company.

During the first three months of the war, 21 newcomers joined the Headway team. Getting riding is very difficult for our new people and managers right now, but we are able to cope with the great support of the team.

My challenge is just to relax. I do a lot, I help the country by donating, I help others. And I feel that this is not the time to rest, but I began to rest for a few days.

My team is an incredible support for me.

I have been receiving psychotherapy for about two years now, and I am sure they helped me to recover quickly after the war. So, I will continue my treatment, which is a very important support.

My recruitment team and the entire highway team are an incredible source of support for me. Our people are very friendly and always ready to take on each other’s actions or help each other verbally and physically. My work also gives me a great sense of stability. I feel between my place and my people.

I was lucky enough to move to the city of Levi, where I lived for eight years and looked like my second home. It would have been more emotional if I had traveled to a city I did not know completely.

Find Headway Women: Anastasia Bondarenko, Content & Communications, Olha Shapovalova, Head of B2B, Mariana Boloban, Head of Employment. They control these complex tasks while maintaining and sustaining the safety of their families.